More particularly, this invention relates to a portable wire holder for plastic bags which do not have integral handle loops (such as are in conventional use for transporting groceries and other articles). The large bags, which are generally used for bagging leaves, are made from thin synthetic resinous films less than about two mils thick and commonly less than one mil thick. Because the bags are provided without handle loops, it is inconvenient for a person to single-handedly hold the mouth of the bag open and fill the bag simultaneously. Anyone who has stuffed a large plastic bag with leaves will recognize that it is a much easier task if another person holds the bag wide open.
There is some debate as to whether local ordinances which require that leaves and trash be bagged in plastic bags were promulgated to create a market for polyolefin film, or whether the availability of the bags made from such film incited the legislation. The fact is that using the bags efficiently without the assistance of another person is not easy.
Of course, such inconvenience was not limited to plastic bags. Some three score years ago, the problem of holding a bag open, so as to enable a person to bag material, was solved by using spring actuated hooks which were inserted into the bag to be held open at the upper corners thereof. The device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,542,164 would serve quite adequately to hold a plastic bag open, except that it would be necessary to fix the locations of all four hooks if the upper frame were to be made from metal wire.
More recently, U.S. Pat. No. 3,638,888 discloses a leaf bag holder made from wire which is portable and foldable so that is can be shipped and stored conveniently. Most important was the realization that the large plastic bags, in general use, were of standard size which made it possible to provide a frame of fixed dimensions upon which the bag could be snagged near its upper corners. This would do away with the necessity for hooks and at the same time it would permit the bags, when filled, to be removed by a forward lateral force without lifting the bag.
Numerous other efforts have been made, with qualified success, to solve the problem elegantly and economically over the intervening period between the foregoing references. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,470,977 teaches of a collapsible frame, but the filled bag must be lifted out of it. U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,402 teaches of a dismantlable arcuate wire frame which requires clips which hold the bag to the bag holding frame. A similar wire frame without the hooks serves as the base.
Even a casual study of the prior art devices quickly forces one to the realization that a successful device must necessarily be extremely simple, portable and easy to package, use and store, at so low a price as to make its cost to the prospective purchaser, inconsequential. The wire bag holder of my invention fulfills the foregoing criteria.